The Frost Begins
by lilidelafield
Summary: PREQUEL TO THE SNOWMEN What happened after the Doctor lost Amy and Rory to the Weeping Angels? How did he come to be living as a hermit above Victorian London? Eleventh Doctor and Kate Stewart


THE FROST BEGINS

 _(PREQUEL TO THE SNOWMEN)_

The word went round like wildfire at UNIT headquarters;

"The Doctor's back! His TARDIS has been sighted at Beachy Head, right up close to the cliff edge, but there's no sign of the Doctor! Where do you think he's gone?"

The rumours of course, did not end there, and finally Doctor Kate Stewart, the head of scientific research of UNIT and day facto commander of the day to day running of the British division of the organisation tired of all the fantastic theories making the rounds of the offices and barracks. The rumours of course, were based almost solely on where the Doctor might have gone immediately on leaving the TARDIS, and Kate knew they were nonsense. She had met the man and worked with him. After years of hearing dad talk about the Doctor, and what a splendid fellow he was (all of him), she had reason now to know dad had been telling the truth. She couldn't imagine what trouble could be brewing down there to prompt the Doctor to call by, but she was certain it was not simply to gaze at the scenery. All the same it did seem a bit odd. She drove down there herself on her free weekend...just to satisfy her own curiosity.

Once she arrived, the TARDIS was plain to see. It stood high upon the cliff, its doors facing out over the cliff edge. Full of curiosity and not a little apprehension she peered to see how much clearance the Doctor had left for himself to step outside safely. Her heart almost stopped. There was less than a hand's breadth between the door and an almost 600 ft sheer drop! Laying down on her front, the only way she felt able to approach the edge without feeling dizzy, she made her way gingerly forwards and peered down the cliff face. A hopeless task, she thought. She knocked on the wood panel side of the TARDIS, unwilling to reach to the door. There was no reply. She didn't really expect one.

"Well either he's jumped or fallen over the edge, or he's inside right now." she said aloud to herself and knocked again.

"Doctor!? It's me!" she called out, certain that, if he was in there, he would hear her. "It's Kate Lethbridge-Stewart!"

For several minutes nothing happened. Then she heard the TARDIS engines start up and gradually the blue police box disappeared from sight. Disappointed, she turned away, then turned back in surprise as the grinding noise returned and the police box reappeared in the same place, but rotated by ninety degrees, the door now facing her. It seemed to open by itself as she approached and, her heart in her mouth, she stepped inside.

She stared round, her first sight of the cavernous interior crammed miraculously inside that tiny blue exterior holding her spellbound. The raised glass platform with the main console was deserted, but walking round the edge of the lower level, she spied the Doctor sitting on one of the lower steps of a staircase that led up into the far reaches of the TARDIS itself. His chin was in his hands and he looked somehow lost. He twitched one eyebrow in acknowledgement, and continued staring into space.

"Are you all right, Doctor?"

He Harrumphed.

"Obviously this old girl doesn't think I am or she wouldn't have rotated herself in order to let you in."

Kate blinked.

"The TARDIS rotated _herself_? It wasn't you? You talk almost as if the ship was alive."

"She _is_ alive."

It was clear that something had gone badly wrong. Kate remembered something her dad had once told her about sometimes finding the Doctor difficult to deal with. "Of course" dad had said, "when he does that regenerating thing, he ends up a totally different man, both to look at and in personality, but I seem to recall the tendency to get moody and difficult when things didn't go his way never did change!" Unfortunately, Kate had no memory of dad ever giving her any clues on how to tackle him at times like this.

"And why do you suppose she let me in? Have you been sitting here like this the whole time? My people tell me your TARDIS showed up here three days ago. Considering where you parked..."

He looked up at her in confusion for a moment before he realised what she was getting at.

"Huh? Oh, Beachy Head, right. The suicide capital of the cosmos is it? Or just a very beautiful spot in an otherwise cruel and uncaring universe?"

Kate ignored his sarcasm. She thought she could dimly see light.

"What's happened Doctor? My people tell me your TARDIS has been parked here for three days. Have you been sitting here moping all that time?"

She looked round, remembering that the Doctor usually had friends by his side. There was no one.

"Have Mr and Mrs Williams left you?"

The Doctor looked up, and his eyes were dull.

"I killed them. They're gone and I can never see either of them again."

Kate took a deep breath.

"What do you mean, you `killed' them?"

He told her briefly about the Weeping Angels and the attack in New York City. He spoke roughly, with a harsh edge that Kate guessed was the only way he could hold himself together. Even so she was certain that he was as close to tears as he had ever been in his long life. She sat down beside him on the steps.

"You've had lots of different friends travelling with you over the years haven't you? Scores of them?"

He nodded dully. Kate smiled gently.

"Some of them leave by choice, some don't, but they all know what they're are getting themselves into before they start don't they? If they don't, then after the first few adventures with you they would have very quickly realised the potential hazards of travelling with you in this thing."

"That's true, but offer a human the whole universe, they'll always accept it."

Kate clamped her lips together and shook her head.

"No they wouldn't."

"What did you say?"

"No they wouldn't accept the universe just because you offer it to them! Some of them accept it, others choose to stay at home instead. Others I am sure would prefer _you_ to follow _them_ rather than have to spend their time following you everywhere."

The Doctor gave a reluctant half-grin. Kate was right. Grace Holloway, the San Francisco surgeon had refused to go with him. Martha Jones had travelled with him for a while and loved it; but soon decided that the risks to herself and to her family were not worth taking, despite everything. Little Jo Grant had left him of her own accord to get married and explore the jungle instead of the universe. She could have had the chance to travel with him too after the Time Lords had revoked his exile. She had chosen not to. Rose Tyler had seen exactly how dangerous travelling with him could be, and yet she had been willing to even leave her family behind in another universe to continue with him. He recalled something he had secretly overheard Sarah-Jane Smith whispering to Rose Tyler after that old affair at the school... "some things are worth getting your heart broken for."

Somehow he knew, had known then what that had been about. Meeting Sarah-Jane had made Rose realise that sooner or later she too would have to be left behind, and she had seriously considered whether she was ready to pay the potential cost. She was one friend whom _had_ stayed with him with her eyes wide open.

"Doctor," Kate said after a long silence; "Your friends stay with you because they choose to. They love you and they enjoy seeing what you can show them. They know the risks and stay with you anyway. When Rory and Amy reunited back in the past, what do you think their thoughts of you were? Blame? Regret that they had ever met you? What would they say to you now if they could see you here, like this?"

"I know what they would say." The Doctor replied, getting up. "All right, Kate. I see what you're getting at, but it doesn't really make me feel any better."

"You're suffering from grief, I know. But you're also feeling guilty; and if I have learnt anything about you, I think you will be trying to avoid company for a while, just in case the next person gets hurt too. The thing is, you have an almost unending life-span whilst we humans have just seventy or eighty years. So even if nothing bad ever happens to them you will still lose them eventually come what may. My suggestion would be enjoy your friends while you can and remember them with fondness. If they know what they are getting into, they know what could happen, allow them the dignity to make their own choice."

The Doctor smiled at her. Somehow the ache he still felt over learning of the death of the Brigadier was lessened slightly in the presence of his daughter. Like her father, he knew instinctively that even if he were to offer, she would refuse to join him in the TARDIS. Somehow that knowledge gave him strength. Like his old friend, she would be there if he needed her. The one thing he felt he could not explain to her, to put into words, although he knew she would certainly understand was the habit of missing something only when it became unavailable. The Doctor knew where all of his old friends were. He had deliberately not followed the course of their lives, because it meant the way was still open for him to visit them any time he felt the need. Knowing that they were potentially available, meant that he really did not need to drop in on them. Like the final years of the Brigadier; it was only after his death, learning that the old man had never seen the Doctor again denied the Doctor the privilege of ever again correcting that oversight. Time was now set like concrete around the Brigadier, and any trip the Doctor made that altered it would endanger the whole of space and time. The very same thing was true of Amy. Even the afterword Amy had written for the end of River's book had underscored the very stark truth that the Doctor would never again be able to see her, not even for a visit.

For a brief moment he had considered going to try and find her, to watch her from a distance perhaps. Not to approach or in any way let her know he was there, but for his own peace of mind, just to see her again...but fortunately common sense had soon taken over and dismissed the idea. Events always seemed to get the better of the Doctor's plans. Amy and Rory's lives would be fine. If he were to turn up secretly, even for an hour to watch from a distance there would suddenly be a Dalek invasion or something to bring them back together and yet again threaten everything. No. He had to let go. He simply had to and that was that. He turned to Kate beside him.

"You know, you occupy the same space as your dad did. He was a good friend. I never did get round to going back to see him again...I always meant to, I just..."

Kate smiled.

"I miss him too."

The Doctor got to his feet.

"So I landed at Beachy Head did I? I wonder why?"

Kate looked quizzical.

"Don't you know? Doesn't this thing have a steering wheel or a rudder or something?"

"Yes, but I just told the old girl to take me somewhere to match my mood. Why on earth she would decide to bring me here...?"

Kate's eyes dropped. The Doctor noticed and his eyes widened. He ran up the steps to the main console and patted it fondly.

"Have I really been that bad, old girl? I am sorry. I know you miss them all too. You'd miss me too wouldn't you, if anything were to happen to me?"

Kate followed him slowly up the steps.

"You meant it when you said this TARDIS was alive didn't you?"

He nodded.

"A very different form of life, but as alive as you and me. The box is just a box, but the TARDIS matrix...the energy field that is the heart and soul of the box...she is _so_ alive."

"Can you communicate?"

He shook his head sadly.

"Not directly, although she hears and understands me well enough. Although...I did get the chance to meet her face to face a little while ago..."

His eyes took on a faraway look, tinged with almost longing.

"An evil alien entity with immense power managed to rip the TARDIS matrix out of the box and dumped her into a humanoid body, with the intention that she should die away from her proper home."

"You got the chance to speak to her like you're talking to me?"

The Doctor nodded. He wanted to say more; to convey something of the privilege, the feelings, the things they had learnt, that _he_ had learnt about her and also about himself, but somehow his tongue became tied.

Kate smiled at him.

"I'm sure it's as precious a memory for her as it is for you." she said softly. "Now if you will, a question. Why did you...or rather she select this spot to put you down? Was it a challenge? Or resignation?"

"No, I rather think she was expecting someone from UNIT to notice us and come to investigate. She refused to leave here. Every time I tried to leave, she kept bringing me back again. When I tried to leave the TARDIS she would reconfigure the rooms so that those main doors simply opened out onto an interior corridor somewhere. I know when I'm beaten, so I sat down to wait."

Kate laughed.

"And you thought that you were the pilot!"

The Doctor saw the amusement, but his eyes were dark.

"It isn't that. Every Time Lord is... _was_ symbiotically connected with his TARDIS. They become almost an extension of each other. If you twist your ankle or break a wrist, the whole body compensates for it, you favour the injury and do all you can to heal the wound. When you injure yourself, it isn't only the injury that hurts is it? Very often the rest of the body can ache in sympathy."

"And its the same thing with a Time Lord and his TARDIS?"

"That's why an injured Time Lord would usually recover away from his TARDIS. They can be terribly sentimental. In this case though, I think the old girl was right...she made her point well enough."

"She was telling you, in her own way, to snap out of it?"

The Doctor grinned. Kate really was just like the Brigadier!

"Either snap out of it or jump and be done with it...yes I think so."

"Have you really been feeling so low you would even consider it? Surely there must be something in the universe worth living for, Doctor?"

"There always is Kate. It's just easy to forget sometimes."

Kate nodded. For all that the Doctor was a powerful alien being, he really did seem remarkably human at times.

"Well it has been good to see you again Doctor. Is it safe to leave you alone now? I have a long drive back home and I am back on duty at four a.m."

For a moment the Doctor looked like a little boy watching his beloved balloon sailing away over the treetops, then he grinned and nodded.

"You can drop in on me any time Kate."

Kate smiled back.

"Any time you need help Doctor...or even a shoulder to cry on..."

For a moment it seemed as if the Doctor's eyes were glistening with tears, but he quickly cleared his throat and turned his head away so that she couldn't be certain.

"Thank you."

He stood at the TARDIS door and watched her drive away, seeing only mistily. The sight of an approaching party of tourists urged him to re-enter the TARDIS, and locked the door behind him. Finally facing up to just how much he had lost, he slipped to the floor, leaning back against the door and resting his face on his knuckles, he sat there, letting the tears fall as they would, yet making no sound at all.

After what seemed an age, he finally hauled himself to his feet and stood for a long time, wondering where he was or what to do. There seemed no point in anything any longer. He had spent most of his life helping other people and what happened? Death and loss and heartbreak. Oh yes, people were alive and free where they may not otherwise have been. Good for them but what satisfaction could he possibly get out of helping anyone now? Out of exploring the universe now? With nobody to share it with everything seemed very pointless.

He thought of Amy's words to him. "Don't be alone Doctor." That's what Rose would say to him, given the chance, and certainly Martha and Donna would have their say too. They would all remind him that being alone was bad for him, and it was true; but no more. He had intended to allow no one else into his life after losing Donna, but continuing to explore and help only brought more people into his life...and then Amy. Little Amelia Pond whom had stolen his hearts like he had never believed possible. And it had happened again. The universe never ever seemed to let up on him, expecting him to keep on and on giving and suffering losses. How many times can a Time Lord suffer heartbreak and still bounce back? No more. He knew his decision would break Amy's heart if she knew, but she had Rory. She would never be alone whilst they had each other, but who did he have left? Every time he cautiously let go and allowed someone into his life the universe would inevitably come up with something and smash him down again.

He looked vaguely round the room. Steps. Humans didn't know how lucky they were to suffer only one broken heart. His hearts had been broken too often in recent years, and this time he knew the break would never heal again. Never completely. The misery blurred his vision and his mind leaving him feeling as if he was in a nightmare, trapped inside a darkened maze unable to find his way out. All he could really remember was that he needed to climb up some steps before he could move the TARDIS anywhere.

He walked round the edge of the room until he came across the steps leading up to the main console. He stared at the myriad controls in a daze. Through the fog he noticed curiously that his hands seemed to be moving across the console without his conscious control, pressing buttons and pulling levers and switches without any clear idea in his mind as to where he was going.

Finally he turned away from the console, his head spinning, a tight constricted pain across his chest that he now realised had started in that New York graveyard as a dull ache, but was now so sharp and agonising that he stumbled, his hand clutching desperately at his chest, and he crashed to the floor.

Madame Vastra, the green complexioned Silurian woman was instantly alert. Her ever faithful companion and friend Jenny Flint looked up.

"What is it?"

"Something familiar my dear." Vastra replied. "can't you hear it?"

Jenny listened hard, but all she could hear on this fine Victorian morning were the early traders outside just setting up their stalls, and the clatter of horses hooves passing by on the cobbled street. Vastra shook her head, perplexed.

"I'm sure I was not mistaken. It sounded like the TARDIS."

Jenny's eyes opened wide.

"You reckon he wants us on another mission?"

Before Madame Vastra could respond, the TARDIS burst into reality and shuddered to a halt in the parlour doorway. They waited in expectation for the Doctor's customary exuberant appearance, but instead the TARDIS seemed to have powered down. There was no sound or movement coming from within. Madam Vastra leapt to her feet, her senses tingling.

"Something is wrong. Come along."

Once Inside the TARDIS they spotted the Doctor immediately, curled in a foetal position on the floor of the console level. They exchanged a startled and anxious glance and dashed to his side. He was breathing heavily and barely conscious.

"Doctor. Doctor! Wake up. Come on now."

The Doctor mumbled and opened his eyes slightly, and gripped his chest even more tightly.

"I can't, not any more. It hurts...everything hurts and nothing matters. I fall for it every time. My life is stuck in a loop. Never again. The universe can solve its own problems from now on... ...umph!"

He slumped forward again as the pain in his chest increased. Jenny and Vastra held him, stunned and wondering what on earth could have happened, feeling him tense and rigid in their grip. Then he went limp. They rolled him over. He had passed out.

Strax examined the Doctor with Jenny and Vastra leaning over his shoulder and breathing in his ear. Ignoring them he concentrated on his job. He was a nurse after all. A good nurse. Finally he put his instruments aside and looked up.

"The Doctor's hearts are failing. I can find no injury, no poison, no sickness, nothing. His hearts both appear to be in perfect health, just like the rest of him but they are nonetheless failing, and so is he."

"Well there 'as to be a reason. Can you wake 'im up so we can talk to 'im?" Jenny inquired in her forthright way. Strax looked her in the eye.

"I can but you must understand he's very weak. If we can't find out what's wrong with him, we could lose him. He is getting weaker all the time."

Strax searched his memory and experience for a pain killer that was safe for Time Lords, and after giving their friend a small dose to help him, Strax removed the Doctor's left boot and jabbed the point of a needle into the ball of his foot. The Doctor awoke with a start and sat up suddenly to rub at the pain in his foot. He glared at the Sontaran.

"Ow!" with one hand he rubbed indignantly at his foot whilst the other hand still clutched at his chest. Hiding her amusement at Strax's novel way of waking him up, Vastra sat on the end of his bed and spoke with an extraordinary gentleness that perhaps hinted at the strength of her regard for her old friend and for her concern about him.

"Doctor, please tell us what has happened?"

The Doctor stared at her, and then round at Jenny and Strax.

"Hang on...what am I doing here?"

"You tell us Doctor. You landed your TARDIS here." Jenny replied. "We all 'ad to 'eave together to get it out of the doorway so's we could leave the room."

The Doctor furrowed his brow.

"I don't remember deciding to come here...OW!"

He closed his eyes and held his breath for a moment, clutching at his chest and turned to the small Sontaran silently watching.

"What did you find wrong with me? My chest hurts...I've not been injured, I never get sick..."

"Heart failure, Doctor." Strax replied without preamble. The Doctor's eyes opened wider.

"Which heart?"

"Both of them. There's nothing wrong with them that I can find, but they are both failing. What has happened to you Doctor? When did the pain start?"

The Doctor closed his eyes.

"A dull ache about four or five days ago. I never even noticed it. I had...something else on my mind..."

"Where were you when it started?" Vastra asked him urgently. "Doctor please, Strax believes you could die if you don't get to the bottom of this."

Quietly the Doctor swung his legs off the bed and sat on the edge, regarding his friends dully.

"I lost my friend Rose Tyler...stranded in an alternate reality. Then I lost Martha...she left me because I ruined her entire life. I lost Donna Noble...oh Donna...I had to erase her entire memory of me to save her life. I swore then that she would be the last. The very last...then I met a little seven year old girl called Amelia Pond. A very special little girl. So special I went back for her when she had grown up and whisked her away to show her the universe. Now I've lost her too. Both Amy and Rory stolen by the weeping angels in such a way that I can never get them back. I can never even see them again."

His friends stared at him, miserable for him. They all knew Amy and Rory. They had all taken part in the battle of Demon's Run to save Amy and her baby from the evil Kovarian. They felt the loss of Amy and Rory for their own sakes, but even more so on seeing the devastating affect it had had on the Doctor. Jenny glanced at Vastra.

"A broken heart."

"No my dear, much more painful than that. _Two_ broken hearts."

The Doctor took a deep, slightly shuddering breath. His chest still hurt, but having spoken of the cause of his hurt seemed to have eased it a little.

"What do you intend to do now?" Strax asked him. The Doctor glanced back.

"The universe is not playing fair with me. It keeps expecting me to jump in and help people, and I do, but it never lets up, and all it does is take and take and take and all I do is lose people. Not any more. I will retire. I will live in my TARDIS and do my own thing and the universe can save itself from now on. I'm past caring. I don't want to be the cause of any more deaths and I don't want to be hurt any longer. I've had enough."

They were stunned to hear the Doctor speaking like this. He had called himself the Doctor because it had always been his first love to help people. For him to renounce all that now, he must really be hurting badly. Almost timidly, Vastra asked him;

"Where will you go?"

He shrugged.

"What does it matter? Here's as good as anywhere else. I can hide the TARDIS somewhere no one will ever find it and I can live without being bothered any more."

He stood up. Jenny grabbed his arm.

"Listen Doctor, you 'aven't lost us. This is our time and we live 'ere. You can't just lock yourself away in your box and never come out. You can at least let us 'elp you? You may 'ave decided to be alone, but please remember you do still 'ave friends 'ere and we'll be 'ere for you any time you need us."

He paused, then nodded gratefully.

"I'll be in touch then." he glanced at Strax and gave a half smile.

"Thank you for helping me. You'll see me around."

They watched as he entered his TARDIS and a moment later the blue box faded from sight. Vastra, Jenny and Strax stared at each other. Jenny looked very upset.

"Will he get back to being the way he was? I never thought I'd hear the Doctor talking like that!"

Vastra smiled at her.

"I'm sure he will eventually my dear. Broken hearts do heal eventually. They just take a long time. We'll help him and keep our eye on him, and who knows? Maybe there is someone else living in this time who may eventually melt the ice again?"

THE END


End file.
